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History of the German Language

The German language is considered one of the major languages of the
world, although it lacks the global distribution of other languages such
as English and French. While it may not have the global reach of other
languages, German is the most widely spoken first language among the 27
member European Union. There are an estimated 100 million individuals
who speak the German language as a native tongue.

German is spoken most heavily as a first language within central Europe,
beginning in Germany itself and extending to several neighboring
countries. German is the official language of Germany where 95% of the
population speaks the language as their native tongue. Austria and
Switzerland boast the next highest concentrations of native German
speakers with 89% and 65% of their populations, respectively, speaking
German. Other major German language communities exist in the following
areas within Europe:

South Tyrol in northern Italy

East Cantons of Belgium

Alsace and Lorraine regions of France

Small villages in the former South Jutland County in Denmark

Outside of Europe the German language's popularity does not match that
of other major languages such as English and French, but that does not
dampen its reach around the globe. The largest number of German language
speaking individuals outside of Europe resides in the United States
where an estimated five million individuals speak German at home. Other
German language speaking communities are found in parts of the following
countries:

Brazil

Argentina

Canada

Australia

South Africa

Namibia

The German language falls under the category of Indo-European languages
and is within the subset of West Germainic languages. The German
language has undergone a lot of change over the course of history and
has generally been viewed as taking two separate roads consisting of
High German and Low German.

High German is considered by many to be the predecessor of modern
German. The rise of the modern German language came from the split of
Old High German and Old Saxon, two West Germainic dialects. This split
and the rise of Old High German as the dominant German language occurred
around the 6th century and last into the 9th century. Beginning in
roughly the year 1000, Old High German was replaced by Middle High
German through the mid 14th century. Early New High German than took
hold, propelled largely by Martin Luther's bible translations in the
16th century, and remained popular until the middle of the 18th century
when a standardized German language replaced it.

The history of German also consists of Low German's transition over the
years. Low German was a language consisting of elements from High
German, Anglo-Frisian (Old English), and Low Franconian. The history of
Low German is largely one of regional dialects that have since been
marginalized.

The Modern German language took root and expanded during the reign of
the Hapsburg Empire, which encompassed large portions of Central and
Eastern Europe. Through the mid-19th century the language became the
common tongue spoken among the townspeople of the empire.

The turn of the 20th century brought about the standardization of the
German language. Standard German originated as a written language and
has since been adopted at different stages by certain regions where
German is the popular language. The language recently underwent a
controversial reform in 1996 that did not finally take root until 2007
in many regions. The changes made during the reform largely dealt with
spelling.

Today the German language is the second most spoken native tongue in
Europe behind Russian, and is the third most popular language taught in
the English speaking world behind French and Spanish.